User blog:Gorvar/Gorvar reviews: Halo -The Fall of Reach.
IMGhttp://boeken.blogo.nl/files/2009/08/halo.jpg[/IMG] Hello everyone! Now put down those pitchforks, i'm not here today to bash on a bad movie. No today we will talk about a novel I picked up earlier this week and by god is it glorious. It is called 'Halo: The Fall of Reach' the first novel based of the Halo Franchise and my first SF novel. It has everything, memorable characters, awesome space battles and ground battles and lots of good drama. Now i understand your criticism since this is indeed a novel based of a game franchise, but I counter your criticism with this. The novel is very easy to get in to, even for those who never played the game, and it expands on things that are mentioned in the franchise and even create new characters which are more interesting then in the games. For those who dont know Halo, the story is like this. It's the 26th century and mankind has reached out for the stars and created a solar empire. People life and work on colonies in the billions and everybody, save a few terrorists, are happy. However when humanity meets a alien alliance called 'The Covenant' everything goes downhill for the human race. Billions of people die because of the superior technology and numbers the Covenant possess and they nearly found Earth, mankind's homeworld. Only the Spartans, a group of super soldiers, are what stands between the human race's survival or it's annihilation. This novel focuses on mankind's unofficial second homeworld, called 'Reach' and the Spartans, among which is Master Chief, the character the player is during the Halo Trilogy games. We learn of his backstory, his friendships, his hardships and feel for him as everything he holds dear is being destroyed around him. The novel deals exclusively on the human side of the Human-Covenant War, especially the Military wing of it, the UNSC. Civilians in this novel are mentioned and have a few lines, but do not play a part in the story or the development of Master Chief, his Spartans or the other major characters such as Captain Keyes, the AI Cortana or Doctor Halsey. The novel starts with a awesome prologue which throws you immediately into the action. You see how deadly the Spartans are and how they are worshiped (and feared) by their normal soldier peers. Spartans are trained killers. Super-fast, Super-strong and very disciplined. Yeh eat that Warhammer 40 K Space marines! This is also the big flaw of the Spartans, even off-duty they cannot stop thinking about the army mentality. The Spartans were selected at a young age, six, and kidnapped from their homes and families because of their perfect genetic structure to become super soldiers to ensure mankind's survival. Because of this they are effectively brainwashed and cannot think for themselves. This is clearly shown as they lack social skills such as not being able to communicate with their peers and the civilians. They believe everything is a mission and sometimes people needlessly die for that. Master Chief is a character you have to feel pity for. Yes he is a bad ass killing machine, but he has nothing else to look forward to in life except the next mission. He'll never have a family, he'll never be able to work outside of the military and basically he has his life taken away from him at age six. Thankfully when he bounds with Cortana he seems to loosen up a lot and when you play the games and read the later novels it makes sense why he seems so loosened up. As i said this book also focuses on Captain Keyes, the Captain of a starship. While MC mostly deals on ground battles, Keyes belongs in space. I like to see him as a more restrict Captain Kirk who seems to be able to win every fight by the skin of his teeth and his wit. Doctor Halsey is the person who created the Spartan program. As the novel progresses you can see how she starts to see that she starts having second doubts of the program. At first she thought, and calculated, the sacrifices these children (and later on adults) made were what's best for mankind, but later on she finally gives up on the program and tries to save as many of her 'children' as possible. Cortana is a AI based on Halsey's brainwaves and takes a younger form of her. She is by far the wittiest and clever character of this novel. You cant help but smile if she gives a retort and snigger if she rolls her eyes at the Chief's actions. This novel takes place in a 30 year life span and in that time you see the characters grow and care for them. You feel bad if one of them dies and hope the rest make it out. The military language and descriptions of weaponry used in this novel feels very authentic and it sort of praises the mentality. So it's very ironic, me a pacifist seems to like it so much. What I dislike about the novel though are three very small gripes i can understand why they cut it out. The first is the lack of a civilian backstory. We have no real Joe or Jane Doe to follow and learn how life is for the people stuck on the planets attacked by the Covenant. However since this is really Master Chief's story and thus focuses on his trials in life instead of mankind as a whole. The second is the Covenant. Aside from one translated broadcast send from the Covenant to the UNSC, they have no real participation in the novel other then being the genocidal alien enemies you hate. You dont know why EXACTLY they hate the human race or how the relationships are between the diverse alien races, except from assumptions made by the UNSC. And the third...not enough Sergeant Johnson. Sergeant Johnson is the Apone from Aliens, in Halo. He is a hardcore marine hurray motherfucker who likes to verbally abuse the Covenant and enjoy a fine cigar. I know he got a novel to himself called 'Contact: Harvest' but still, it would have been awesome to read a awesome one liner that would've send the Covenant packing. Now I dont want to spoil to much for you, although given the title it's kinda hard, but if you like a good SF story that deals with mankind's last stand against a alien crusade, and you love character dramatic deaths, please read it. you wont be disappointed. Category:Blog posts